Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them, maybe! |
Let's get to your first question this week. |
First question this week comes from Bohdan. Hi, Bohdan. I hope I said your name correctly. Bohdan says, "Hi, Alisha. You've been teaching me for the last half year." Cool! "I want to ask you about the contraction of the word 'would' with nouns. Sometimes, I hear that we can use 'cat'd' instead of 'cat would,' or 'lesson'd' instead of 'lesson would.' But, I can't find any information about this. Can you explain it to me?" Sure, yeah. Absolutely. So, we can contract "would" to just apostrophe D. So, for example, when we have an expression like "I would like," we can contract this to "I'd like," right? As you suggest in your question we can also use this with other nouns. |
So, for example, you talked about "cat would," and that's perfectly okay. So, "The cat'd love that treat" or "The lesson'd be over by now." We can also use these contracted forms with other nouns. It's totally fine to do this. So, the answer is yes, you can use "I would" or noun "would" as a contraction just using apostrophe D, that's totally fine to do. It's very natural actually to do this. So, just keep in mind that although it's very natural and very common to use noun plus "would" as noun apostrophe D, there's another apostrophe D to be careful of when you're reading and when you're speaking. And, that's when "had" is used in the reduced form. |
We see this in patterns like subject, had been. So, for example, "I had been" or "She had been." In these cases, "had" is reduced to apostrophe D just as we talked about earlier with "would." This sounds like "I'd been" or "She'd been." So, a very common question is, how do I know the difference between the reduced forms? How do I know if it's "I would" or "I had?" And, the answer is to look at the word that comes after the contraction. When we use the "noun/would" pattern, the word that comes after this is a verb in the infinitive form. So, for example, "I'd go" or "she'd sit," and so on, the verb is in the infinitive form. So, that means the base form, there's no change to the verb there. |
On the other hand, when we use this "had" in the reduced form the verb that follows it is a verb in the past participle form. So, for example, "I had been" or "she had eaten," and so on. So, the verb that follows the contraction is what's telling you the hint. It's what's telling you which form of apostrophe D you're looking at. This may take a little bit of time to get used to, especially in speech, but that's okay. This will become more natural as you practice. So, a good way to do this is to keep an eye out for this contraction when you are reading. So, I hope this helps you understand how to use this apostrophe D for "would" and for "had." Thanks very much for an interesting question. Let's move on to your next question. |
Next question comes from Hasan. Hi, Hasan. Hasan says, "What is the difference between 'stationary' with an A, in 'stationery' with an E? Thank you." Okay, yeah. Great. Really interesting question. "Stationary" with an A, and "stationery" with an E. Let's talk about "stationery" with an E first. "Stationery" with an E refers to things like paper, pens, ink, envelopes, and so on that we use to create kind of nice letters, or maybe we use them for like official documents, or something kind of formal. So, generally, when we write someone a note or maybe we're at home just taking some kind of information down on the phone, we just use plain old paper and pens, right? But, another way to understand this is as "stationery," the things that we use to write our letters, to write our notes, and so on. |
When we use the word "stationery," we can use it to talk about kind of like office supplies sometimes. But, a lot of the time, stationery refers to kind of nice things that we use for letters and for other situations. So, for example, you might hear about matching "stationery." That refers to paper and envelopes that come as kind of a set. There's like a special design on the envelope that matches the special design of the paper. So, when the person receives the letter in this case, it looks very formal, it looks beautifully designed. So, we often think of this, when we think about "stationery." So, maybe you use this very special pen to write something in a beautiful way, and so on. So, this is "stationery" with an E. This refers to these kinds of materials and tools that we use for generally kind of formal or maybe special occasion communication. |
On the other hand, "stationary" with an A, refers to something that is not moving. So, for example, if you're in a car, it stopped in traffic, you can say, "I'm stationary right now." So, that means you are not moving in any direction. Something that is in the state of not moving is "stationary." Simply, "stationary" with an A refers to something that is not moving. So, your car when stopped is "stationary." Or, maybe when you are walking through an airport and you need to stop for a moment, you are "stationary." So, that means that you are not moving. Something is in the condition of being stopped. So, we call this "stationary." So these are two very, very different terms for sure. So, be aware that when you're talking about writing and those kinds of materials, we use "stationery" with an E. When you're talking about the condition of being stopped, we use "stationary" with an A. I hope this answers your question. Thanks very much for sending it along. Okay. Let's move on to your next question. |
Next question is from Rohit Soni. Hi, Rohit. Rohit says, "What's the correct pronunciation of 'the'? Should we say it like 'uh' or like 'ee'? The or the?" The answer is both actually. So, generally, when we're just talking in everyday speech, we don't want to put any special emphasis on the noun that comes after this word. We just say "the." "The." So, for example, "I went to the movie theater" or "I saw that on the computer today." When we're not trying to kind of indicate some special emphasis, we use "the" generally. "The" is used when we want to indicate some kind of special emphasis for something. So, maybe you're trying to make a decision between a couple of different things, for example, and maybe you think to yourself, "Ah, this is the choice for me." Like you want to emphasize something about that item or something about your decision, you might use "the" instead of "the" to do that. |
So, both pronunciations are 100% correct, and they're both totally natural to use. But, if you use the "the" pronunciation all the time it's going to sound really weird. I'm using the "the" pronunciation in these cases because I'm trying to emphasize "the" in this case. I'm trying to emphasize the difference between the two pronunciations. So, if you're having kind of a hard time trying to think about this like, "Oh, my gosh! How do I know when to emphasize a word? How do I know when I shouldn't emphasize a word? What does this even sound like?" Maybe an exercise that you can try is just to go back and watch this video or watch any other episode of Ask Alisha and try to listen for the times when I use "the" and the times when I use "the." Chances are that when I use the "the" pronunciation as I just did, I'm trying to emphasize or kind of highlight the word that follows my "the" pronunciation. |
When I use "the," I'm probably just kind of continuing along in speech. There's no special emphasis there. So, if you want to kind of look for an easy way to practice, you can just use these videos and try to find out. Like, "Is she using "the" here or "the" there, and why?" Probably it's for emphasis or to help that next word stand out a little bit from the other information. So, to answer your question, both pronunciations are totally correct. We just use them in slightly different ways to kind of show a little bit more emphasis here and there. So, thanks very much for sending this question along. |
All right. That is everything that I have for this week. Thank you as always for sending your great questions. Thanks very much for watching this week's episode of Ask Alisha, and I will see you again soon. Bye! |
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